Not since Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet has water been this big of a deal—everywhere the camera turns we find precious water. Benjamin’s father, seeing his son’s ghastly appearance for the first time, thinks to drown the newborn in a river. As a young-old man, we see him bathed by Queenie, then getting a job on a tugboat and setting off to war in the Atlantic. He gets to know Tilda Swinton’s Elizabeth over boiling water and, years later, rejoices silently in a diner when she finally swims the English Channel. His biological father dies at the beach, at the same rundown place where Benjamin and Daisy spend time together before honeymooning in a location overcome in one scene by heavy rain—everyone flees but the newlyweds. And, most importantly, the frame story has an elderly and dying Daisy lying in a New Orleans hospital as Hurricane Katrina approaches, soon to drown the city and accompany the old woman’s passing.
An overbearing motif, to say the least, and yet, for me, this was the only true device holding the film together. (The frame story was also, to say the least, the only portion of the film I felt succeeded.) David Fincher’s 166-minute follow-up to Zodiac is unnecessarily long and overburdened by special effects. Yes, Swinton’s Elizabeth proves late in the film that age is irrelevant – even though, somehow, paradoxically, this film tends to say the opposite – but her scenes add nothing to the story of Benjamin himself. Similarly, Brad Pitt’s slow transformation from young-old man to old-young man is disjointed, with Fincher and screenwriter Eric Roth devoted a lopsided amount of time to certain portions of his life – growing up, falling in love – rather than others, including Benjamin in his old age: A boy who grows increasingly younger.
I was hoping, given the premise and the talent involved, that this film would be something special—a great concept by a great American author struck to film with the best of intentions. Instead, this was a long and tedious disappointment.
by Adam Balz | Source: Theatrical Print
09 Jan 2009 12:09 PM | Comments (2)
it was a little weird to see an old version of Brad Pitt’s face pasted onto a kid’s body, but i guess that’s why they call it a “curious case”
I thought this was a movie about the last eight years. Benjamin wasn’t magical, he just had this malady. He floated through time, but not heroically like Forrest Gump (stupidest piece of propaganda ever, began the Bush years and told us all that we can listen to the – let’s say – less than average, do what they tell us, and we will become wealthy history makers. Bejamin Button was not like that at all, and the resulting movie was incredibly touching. Odd that the Bush years ended with so many mvies about surreal physical decay, like Synechdote, NY., The Wrestler; House’s patients keep dying, and all the Green Movement commercials end with tree frogs colorfully multiplying. Weird PR out there.
coffee
18 January 2009
2:38 PM
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